Beguiled (31 page)

Rylee asked. “You can’t mean the one on East Battery. The one he’s lived in for as long as I can remember. The one I’ve been in and out of this whole time I was walking Romeo. Was that
my
house, Logan? The one I was born in?”

“Logan?” The curator from Gibbes Museum approached with a smile, her brown hair bouncing attractively at her shoulders. “Have you decided to give up crime reporting for the art section?”

“Angela. Good to see you again.” Logan introduced Rylee to the young brunette who’d given him a crash course on Charles Fraser.

They spent the next hour mingling and gathering sound bites for the article Logan had been assigned. Rylee smiled and nodded, but heard nothing other than Logan’s words to Gibbon whirling round and round in her head.

She constantly scanned the crowd for Marcel, but the man had completely disappeared.

When they finally broke free of their obligations, she steered Logan toward a quiet corner. “I want to know what’s going on.”

He pulled her close for a quick kiss, concern creasing his face.

“Let’s get out of here and I’ll explain everything.”

Emerging into the balmy night, he pulled her down the sidewalk, looking at her every few seconds.

What did he expect to see, she wondered. Her breaking down and crying, shrieking at the moon, confessing she didn’t know who she could trust anymore?

She slowed her stride. Slower, slower, until they were barely moving.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She inhaled the sultry night air. “Is Mr. Sebastian involved with Robin Hood?”

He stopped and pulled her against him. Held her.

“Logan?” Her voice came out in a squeak.

His hand touched the back of her neck, her head, pressing her tight into his shoulder.

How much time passed? She didn’t know. When she pulled away, his jacket was wet.

They walked to his car, fingers twined together, bodies swaying side by side. She could feel him thinking, searching for words. Instead of opening her car door, he settled against the hood, drawing her between his knees.

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“That the statue for sure and possibly the violin, the brooch and maybe even the jewelry casket are pictured in Nonie’s albums.”

“The jewelry casket? Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything. I have the album in my trunk. I can show you.”

He brought their hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Did you know Grant brokered the estate sale for your grandmother after your parents . . . were gone?”

“Yes. But I didn’t know he was living in my house. Nonie never said a word. Maybe she was waiting until I got older and by the time I was, she’d stopped making sense. Whenever she does talk about the past, though, it’s always the distant world of her own childhood, not mine.”

The party began to break up, guests streaming past, paying them no mind.

She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Surely you don’t think Grant Sebastian is mixed up in all this? He wasn’t even here.”

“He’s got something to do with it, Rylee.”

“He’s been nothing but good to me, Logan. He’s taken care of me when there was no one else.”

He said nothing.

She smoothed the silk at her stomach and hips, obsessively stroking the shimmering fabric. “Do you think that, that my dad is involved?”

He reared back. “Your dad? I don’t know. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.”

She nodded. “Logan, Marcel mentioned your book. He made it sound like it was about the Robin Hood burglaries. I thought your book was already written. That it was about past crimes and you were shopping it around for a publisher.”

He stroked her hair, rubbing its short ends between his fingers.

“The Robin Hood burglaries play a role in the book.” He moved his gaze to hers. “A pretty big role.”

“And me?” she asked, holding her breath. “Do I play a role in your book?”

“No. No, you don’t.”

“But I’ve been accused of being the Robin Hood burglar. All the items he’s taken belonged to my family. How can you leave me out of it?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“I see.” She took a step back.

“Rylee—”

“I think I’m ready to go home now.”

Pushing away from the car, he opened her door. A manila envelope rested beneath the wiper blades on the passenger side.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at it.

“Let me see.” He slid out the top portion of the papers, trying to read in the golden streetlight. “Looks like some kind of background information. Maybe from that curator or something. I’ll take a look at it later when I have more light. ”

He tossed the envelope in the backseat, tucked her in, then went around to his side.

Once she had her seat belt attached, he took both of her hands in his, fixing her with the sincerest, most earnest of looks. “Don’t go back to Liz’s apartment. Let me take you to my parents’ place.

They’d be happy to have you.”

She shook her head. “I’m still borrowing everything but my toothbrush from Liz. And I’ve never even met your parents. What would they think of me?”

“They won’t judge you, Rylee. And my mom will feed you home-cooked meals. Dad will tell you bad jokes. How can you pass that up?”

She smiled, but held firm. “No, really. Liz is my best friend. Everything’s familiar. That’s where I feel safe.”

He relented with a sigh, then produced a folded piece of paper from inside his jacket.

“What’s this?”

“Some folks in my neighborhood who need a dogwalker.” He put the car in gear and pulled out into the street.

She punched on the reading light. His neat masculine script catalogued names, addresses, and phone numbers.

“What about this?” She pointed to various times of day written by each name.

He glanced over. “That’s when they’re expecting you tomorrow. So don’t be late.”

The parade of disastrous interviews shuffled through her mind. “Do they know who I am? That I’ve been arrested?”

Without taking his eyes off the road, he nodded. “They do.”

She swallowed. “And they’re still willing to trust me in their homes? With their pets? Why would they do that?”

“Because I asked them to.”

Carefully refolding the paper, she ran her fingers over each crease. His book had set alarm bells off in her head. But now, those concerns began to fade.

She tucked the list inside her clutch purse and turned off the overhead light.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Who’s seen this?” Lacey asked, flipping to the last page of the affidavit.

“No one but you.” Logan still clutched the empty envelope in his hands, the one he’d found under his windshield wiper the night before. “Tell me I’m not crazy. Is that what I think it is?”

She lowered her tortoiseshell reading glasses. “You didn’t show it to Rylee Monroe?”

“She was with me, like I said. But when I saw her father’s name on it, I just put it aside. She’s pretty sensitive about him.”

He’d played it off as best he could, and Rylee was so distracted by the encounter with Gibbon that she hardly noticed. Once he’d tossed the envelope in back, she seemed to forget all about it. But he didn’t. What little he’d read burned in his mind.

“Who do you think left it?” Lacey asked.

He shrugged. “I assume it’s a gift from the Cherub, since we’d just been talking to him. But I can’t be sure.”

“Well,” she said, tapping the page with her finger. “If this is legit, then Jonathan Monroe created this affidavit to expose Grant Sebastian.”

“Only he disappeared instead. It doesn’t make sense.”

She put the affidavit on her desk, then started digging through one of the cavernous drawers in her file cabinet. “I thought I took you off this story.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “This was dropped in my lap.”

From the back of the drawer, she hauled out a thick manila folder so stuffed with mismatched paper that bits were sticking out from the sides. Spreading it out on her desk, she dug through the stack, setting aside whole chunks of paper at a time. Logan saw printouts, older typescripts, and a sheaf of handwritten notes.

“I covered Monroe’s disappearance,” she said. “Years ago.”

“I know. I dug up all the old stories.”

“The thing that always bothered me was, I knew Jon. Knew the family. After the way he felt about his dad leaving, Jon was the last person I would have imagined abandoning his family like that. He and Stella, they were in love. But it was all there on paper. Grant showed me their financial statements.”

She found what she was looking for, an old spiral-bound stenographer’s pad with half the pages torn out. Flipping through the remainder, she handed the relevant notes to Logan. A report of Jonathan Monroe’s cleaned-out bank account.

“What about Stella? Did you manage to talk to her before she died?”

“I scheduled an appointment. Through Grant.”

“And she was dead before it came?”

She smiled grimly. “This affidavit changes everything.”

“No kidding. You don’t draft a document like that and then disappear with the family fortune. He was planning to go to the police.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or he thought he could force his partner to make restitution. He could have drafted this as some kind of bargaining chip. ‘Give these people back their money, or I’ll go to the authorities’—that kind of thing. Only he never got the chance.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning it’s not as easy to disappear as you might think. Did you know that Flora Monroe hired a private investigator to find her son?” She looked him square in the eye. “They never found a trace of him.”

“You think he was murdered?”

She didn’t answer, but he could see that was exactly what she was thinking.

“By
Sebastian
?”

“Not him personally. He wouldn’t get his hands dirty. But he’s always had the right kind of connections for that kind of thing. Our friend Gibbon, for example.”

“And what about Stella?”

She fingered the pearls at her throat thoughtfully. “If she did kill herself, that suggests grief, doesn’t it? Like she knew Jon wasn’t coming back. Ever. But if she had any hope at all, then it seems a little convenient—and suspicious—that Stella overdosed, leaving her daughter behind like that.”

Logan’s mind raced. The puzzle he’d been putting together didn’t fit the way he assumed. Now the pieces all looked different, and he had to rearrange his mental map. Grant’s whole career was built on a lie. He’d posed as a father figure for Rylee, but only after getting rid of her real parents.

“At least now we have the proof,” he said.

“No, we don’t.” Lacey handed the affidavit back. “If that document can be authenticated, all it proves is Grant Sebastian’s guilt in defrauding people whose estates he was executor of. Nothing else. The rest is speculation.”

“Wait.” Logan stared at the envelope in his hand. “There’s something else. I don’t know how it connects, but I think Karl Sebastian is being blackmailed.”

He quickly outlined the episode at Sebastian’s office, where the courier handed him the mailer by mistake. The note inside read the same as the message left in Rylee’s apartment.

“You think the blackmail and the Robin Hood burglaries are connected?” she asked. “And it’s something to do with the affidavit?”

“I’m not sure what I think yet. But somebody’s delivering an awful lot of unmarked envelopes.”

“The Cherub?”

“That’d be my first guess.”

She nodded. “Well, whoever it is clearly wants this thing plastered across the front page—which is exactly what he’s going to get.”

“I thought I was off the story.” Logan tensed. “Besides, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Because you want to save it for your book?”

He shook his head. “It’s not that. Before we do anything with this, I need to talk to Rylee first. I owe her that, don’t you think?”

Swinging her leg, she scrutinized him for a long moment. “I’ll only wait long enough for you to talk to her. And leave the original here with me.”

“I expected as much, so I made myself a copy. But it’s more than just talking to her. I want her consent.”

“Logan, it’s not like she’ll want to keep this a secret. She’s grown up thinking her dad cleaned out the bank account and abandoned his wife and daughter. This is good news for her.”

“I know. But I still want her consent. I’m not going to exploit her, Lacey.”

He expected more of an argument, but she conceded with a wave of her hand. “She’ll agree. In the meantime, consider yourself back on the story. You know what that means.”

“What?”

“I want a reaction quote from Grant Sebastian.”

He left Lacey’s office, his mission clear. Before, he’d been uncertain. He had no legal experience. No firsthand knowledge to confirm his suspicions.

But Lacey did. And if the affidavit rang true to her, then there was no reason to doubt. He could reveal the truth to Rylee.

The thought thrilled him. Her whole idea of herself, her conviction that the people she loved would ultimately abandon her—a belief borne out by the mass exodus of clients—would be suddenly overturned.

Her parents had loved her. Her father hadn’t left her. Her mother hadn’t killed herself—at least, it didn’t seem likely. Thinking of it all, he could imagine her face lighting up, the weight she’d been carrying since childhood abruptly lifted.

At his desk, he paused, examining the affidavit again. Suppose she didn’t light up, though. He was proposing to tell her that her parents had been murdered, after all. That her inheritance had been stolen from her. And that the man responsible was the one person through all the years she’d believed she could rely on.

Maybe he needed to think about this.

But no. His prevarication of the night before had not sat well with him.

What Rylee needed was the truth, and that was the one thing only he could give her. The book didn’t matter. The paper didn’t matter. All that mattered was her.

But first, he had to go to Grant Sebastian.

And he’d wring more out of the man than just a reaction quote.